Reflections on the Rise and Progress of the American Rebellion.

[attrib. to Joseph GALLOWAY (1731-1803)]

Reflections on the Rise and Progress of the American Rebellion. London: printed by J. Paramore, 1780. Small octavo (6 ½ x 4 ¼ in; 165 x 108 mm). Pp. [1-]4-96. Later calf by Matthews, covers ruled in gilt, spine lettered in gilt, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers (small tear to front free endpaper, light scuffing to extremities.

Provenance: Richard Chamberlayne (Cleve Hill, [Mangotsfield, Gloucestershire], inscriptions and manuscript notes [see images]); Levi Z. Leiter (1834-1904, founder of Marshall Field & Co. who [amongst many other appointments] was president of the Chicago Art Institute, and president of the Chicago Historical Society. This book ex-lot 252 in the Anderson Galleries, 15 & 16th Feb, 1933, ‘Rare Americana from the Library of the late Levi Z. Leiter’ sale).

A very nice copy of a work which supported the American Loyalist point-of-view, from the prestigious Levi Leiter collection. This work is generally agreed to be an abridgment, by John Wesley, of Galloway’s ‘Historical and political reflections on the rise and progress of the American rebellion’, published in the same year.

Galloway “was an American politician. He became a Loyalist during the American Revolutionary War, after serving as delegate to the First Continental Congress from Pennsylvania. For much of his career in Pennsylvania politics, he was a close ally of Benjamin Franklin, and he became a leading figure in the colony. As a delegate to the Continental Congress, Galloway was a moderate, and he proposed a Plan of Union which would have averted a full break from Britain. When this was rejected, he moved increasingly towards Loyalism.  After 1778, Galloway lived in Britain where he acted as a leader of the Loyalist movement and an advisor to the government. Many Loyalists went into exile after America won its independence from Britain and signed the Peace of Paris (1783), so Galloway permanently settled in Britain.” (Wikipedia).

Howes W-268; Sabin 68714; Amer. Contr. 80-32.